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Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and most Ohio Time Warner systems will be acquired by Charter Communications to help Comcast's purchase of Time Warner.

Comcast, which bought NBC Universal from General Electric three years ago, said in February it would sell off about 3 million cable subscribers to appease government regulators as part of its $45-billion acquisition of Time Warner.

In a joint Comcast-Charter announcement Monday, Connecticut-based Charter said it will take over 1.4 million Time Warner customers for an estimated $7.3 billion in cash when the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable closes.

All but two Ohio Time Warner systems – and most in Kentucky – will become part of Charter, said Alex Dudley, Comcast spokesman. Time Warner has major cable operations throughout Ohio, including the Cincinnati-Dayton corridor, Cleveland-Akron, Columbus and Portsmouth areas. Charter also will add Time Warner systems in Indiana, Wisconsin and Alabama.

"Probably not much will change in the short term" for Time Warner customers, Dudley said. After Charter takes over area systems – probably near the end of the year – Charter will "lay out a timeline" for the Time Warner systems "to start to look like the Charter systems do now," he said.

For Northern Kentucky cable TV customers, Charter will be their third cable company since 2012. Time Warner acquired the 760,000 former Insight customers in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana on March 1, 2012.

Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator, also will spin off a new publicly traded company named SpinCo, which will have 2.5 million former Comcast subscribers.

Charter will acquire one-third ownership of the new company and manage SpinCo, giving it control of 8.2 million video customers, Dudley said. That will make Charter the second-biggest cable operator behind the enlarged Comcast when the deal closes.

Currently Charter is fourth behind Comcast, Time Warner and Atlanta-based Cox Communncations (6 million subscribers).

Dudley said Charter is in the process of upgrading all systems to digital, doubling broadband speed from 30 to 60 megabytes per second, and increasing high-definition and on-demand services.

In a 2014 Consumer Reports survey of 17 TV service providers, Charter ranked No. 14, just ahead of Comcast (No. 15) and Time Warner (No. 16) for customer satisfaction, said David Butler, communications director for Consumer Union, the magazine's parent.

"On a scale of 0 to 100, Charter and Comcast each scored 59, and Time Warner scored 58," Butler said. "All three received especially low marks for the value they offer for the money."

According to Bloomberg News, Monday's agreement marks the end of weeks of discussion between Charter and Comcast, and put them both on a path to reach more subscribers after the traditional U.S. pay-TV market lost customers for the first time last year. Comcast had thwarted Charter's attempt to buy Time Warner before the February merger was announced.

"Despite what may be some lingering bad blood between Comcast and Charter, this deal illustrates that these companies can work well together to efficiently consolidate the cable TV industry," said Paul Sweeney, an analyst for Bloomberg Industries.